Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bruce Barth was born September 7, 1958 in Pasadena, California. He started banging on the piano almost before he could walk. By the age of five he started piano lessons though he preferred to play by ear. When he was eight his family moved to New York where he studied piano and musicianship with Tony and Sue LaMagra for the next decade. Turning 15 his older brother Rich gave him his first jazz record, Mose Allison’s Back Country Suite. The young lad fell in love with both the music and the genre and inspired, he taught himself to play jazz by listening to records and imitating his many favorite pianists and horn players.

He went on to study privately with Norman Simmons and Neil Waltzer, and eventually enrolled in New England Conservatory in Boston, where he studied with Jaki Byard, Fred Hersch, and George Russell. Barth’s first professional recording was Russell’s masterpiece, The African Game, captured live on Blue Note Records. Arriving on the New York jazz scene in 1988, he soon joined tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine and their musical collaboration spanned a decade. Shortly thereafter, he toured Japan with Nat Adderley, and toured Europe and recorded with Vincent Herring’s quintet with Dave Douglas.

In 1990, Bruce joined the Terence Blanchard Quintet; the band toured extensively, and also recorded six CDs, as well as several movie soundtracks. In 1992, he played piano on-screen in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X. While in Blanchard’s band, he recorded his first two CD’s as a leader, In Focus and Morning Call; both were chosen for the New York Times’ top ten lists.

Throughout his professional life, Bruce has performed and collaborated with Tony Bennett, Steve Wilson, Terell Stafford, Luciana Souza, and Karrin Allyson, David Sanchez, James Moody, Phil Woods, Freddie Hubbard, Tom Harrell, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, Art Farmer, Victor Lewis, John Patitucci, Lewis Nash, the Mingus Big Band, Tim Armacost, Scott Wendholt, Dave Stryker, Carla Cook, Paula West, Rene Marie, Luis Bonilla, Doug Weiss, Ugonna Okegwo, Montez Coleman, Dana Hall and Dayna Stephens, among numerous others.

As an educator pianist Bruce Barth is on the jazz faculty of Temple University, has taught at Berklee College of Music, Long Island University, currently gives private lessons to City College University and New School students, and has participated in many workshops, clinics, and seminars in the U. S. and abroad. To date he has performed on over one hundred recordings and movie soundtracks, including ten as a leader, is a Grammy nominated producer, and has served two years on the panel for the U.S. State Department “Jazz Ambassadors” program,. He continues to play solo piano, lead an all-star septet and composed for a variety of ensembles.

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